Intoxicated
by Diandra Hollman
Summary: "I *am* straight, despite the evidence to the contrary that was literally laying in front of me that morning. At least I'm reasonably certain that I am." Slash, morning after.


Title: Intoxicated

Author: Diandra Hollman

E-Mail: diandrahollman

Date Finished: 3-18-2003

Rating: a strong R

Classification: S A R

Keywords: X-Files/Alias Crossover, Mulder/Scully UST, Vaughn/Sydney UST, Slash themes, Mulder POV, some mild Vaughn abuse because I apparently can't get through a story without roughing *somebody* up at least a little. ;P

Spoilers: Two shows and I still manage to have absolutely NO spoilers whatsoever. Isn't that sad? Well, maybe some *very* general ones. Y'all know about that whole evil government/alien colinization thing, right? You know that Sydney is a double agent working for some evil, evil people, right? There. That's all the "spoilers"  
you'll find here. :)

Disclaimer: These characters don't even belong to the same people, much less me or I'd be rolling in cash instead of wondering how in the heck I'm going to be able to afford my next semester of college. ;P All characters connected to "X-Files" belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and FOX. All characters connected to "Alias" belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions (seriously, who came up with *that* name?) and ABC.

Summary: "I *am* straight, despite the evidence to the contrary that was literally laying in front of me that morning. At least I'm reasonably certain that I am."

Dedication: To Lisa, who proved that she's willing to stick by me no matter what I write, whether it's DSR, MSR, slash, or crossovers with shows she doesn't watch. ;D Thank you! And to all the fanfiction authors out there - you know who you are - who are brave enough to 'color outside the box'. Am I mixing metaphors there? Oh, well, you know what I mean, right? ;)  
And finally, to the actors who bring these two wonderful characters to life: David Duchovny and Michael Vartan. :::gros bisses::: ;) Also: I'm sorry.

Author's Notes: Despite the fact that these shows actually did overlap... briefly, I couldn't write the story the way I wanted to write it unless I adjusted the timelines a bit. Hence the "AU" label. I'm not going to commit myself to any *specific* timelines, but this story takes place somewhere around season 8 of The X-Files - after "DeadAlive" and season 2 of Alias sometime before "Passage I".

Also, Scully was never pregnant and Alice doesn't exist. Don't everybody thank me at once. ;D No, I didn't have a problem with the pregnancy arc, I just hate trying to work it into my stories. And to the Alice fans out there (both of you), I just want to say that I don't in any way hate her, but let's be honest here: she was never anything more than a plot device.

Other than that, any characters outside of Mulder, Scully, Vaughn and Sydney don't play a part in this fic, so whether they exist or not...well, I'll leave that up to your imagination. ;)

Intoxicated By Diandra Hollman

I met him in a bar. We were both fairly sloshed by the time we even started talking to each other. That's the only way I can explain what happened; we were drunk.

We talked about work mostly, although neither of us really specified exactly *what* it is we do other than we both work for the government and hey, what a coincidence. Let's drink to that! We focused more on talking about the people we work with and the dangers of a government job. We admitted that we have both come closer to death more times than we would care to remember.

"We must have some seriously overworked guardian angels," I joked.

He grinned stupidly at that. "Yeah," he agreed.

After a few more drinks I admitted that I had actually *died* a couple of times and had been *buried* for three months. Thankfully, he was too plastered to tell me I was a few bolts shy of a Volkswagen and anybody who may have overheard probably assumed I was too drunk to know what I was saying and therefore I shouldn't be taken seriously.

At closing time we staggered out the door and into a cab that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I don't remember who gave directions to the driver, but as luck would have it we both happened to be staying at the same hotel anyway.

During the ride we somehow gravitated closer to one another until my hand ended up in his lap. The next thing I knew, our tongues were wrestling each other for dominance.

His hand grabbed mine and pressed it boldly to the growing hardness that strained against the front of his slacks.

I somehow managed to find my hotel room and pulled him inside by his tie - which, I noticed, was almost as hideous as my own.

What happened after that was a blur of events that neither one of us will ever willingly tell another living being.

I remember the awkwardness with which we removed each other's clothes - often choosing to simply tear the material when buttons proved too difficult for our alcohol-induced lack of complex motor functioning. I remember vaguely wondering how the alcohol hadn't rendered us both impotent.

Mostly, I remember the feel of his body beneath mine, surrounding me. I remember the sounds he made and the way his legs wrapped around my waist, his hands clawing at my back as my hips rocked against his. I remember both of us moaning half-coherent encouragements that mostly consisted of how good it felt and pleas to keep doing it.

I remember the way his eyes rolled back in his head as he came with a sigh and a quiet moan. Control. Something I was apparently lacking when I came shortly afterwards with a triumphant shout that could likely have woken the dead. I also remember thinking that I should get off of him before I crushed him to death, but I passed out before I had the chance to actually attempt it.

I woke up the next morning when an arm slammed into my chest.

Normally I would have jumped out of bed and reached for my gun, but I didn't have the energy to do anything more than moan pathetically as I was rewarded for my return to consciousness with a deep throbbing in my skull.

I shoved the offending arm aside and crawled out of bed to get an aspirin from my suitcase - silently thanking Scully for always insisting I bring some with me just in case.

I managed to drag myself back to the bed and, lacking the energy to actually get into it, slumped on the floor beside it and propped myself against the hard metal frame, waiting for the elephants tap dancing in my head to take an intermission.

When the pounding finally began to ease, I tried to remember where I was and what had happened the night before. I almost forgot about the owner of the arm that had rudely awakened me until I heard a groan.

My alcohol-and-sleep fuzzed mind scrambled frantically to remember who the hell this person was and what the hell they were doing in my bed. And when I finally remembered, I immediately wanted to forget again.

What the hell had I done?

I suddenly became aware of an uncomfortable stickiness on my skin in the places where the sweat - among other things - had dried.

I don't think I've ever taken a shower and gotten dressed so quickly in my life.

As I was standing in front of the dresser mirror, trying to straighten my tie, I heard another moan from the bed where he was still sound asleep.

"Sydney," he mumbled.

I briefly debated leaving before he woke up - allowing at least one of us to forget that anything happened the night before. But I knew he would remember when he tried to figure out why he was in somebody else's hotel room.

I filled a glass with water in the bathroom and shook two more pills out of the aspirin bottle. Then I sat on the edge of the bed closest to him and just looked at him, thinking.

My first thought was that I could have done worse. He could have been an ugly, middle-aged, pot-bellied truck driver named Phil. Considering how many drinks I'd had, I wouldn't have been surprised. But this guy had to be at least five years younger than me and he was probably in better shape than I was; a fact that I found mildly irritating since I remembered him telling me that his is mostly a desk job.

He was a pretty good-looking guy. From certain angles, his nose looked slightly too big for his face, but I'm probably one of the last people who should pass judgment on that issue. Of course, I really don't know much about what is and isn't attractive in a man. I *am* straight, despite the evidence to the contrary that was literally laying in front of me that morning.

At least I'm reasonably certain that I am.

I knew the exact moment he woke up. He rolled over onto his side and went completely still. Then his body stiffened, his forehead becoming a veritable maze of creases, and he moaned miserably.

"Here," I said softly, unclenching his hand and pressing the pills into it. "Take these."

I knew that he carried a gun. And if he weren't so hung over I would probably have been on the business end of it at that moment. But his trained instincts were failing him just as my own instincts had failed me earlier and he was in too much pain to give a shit.

"You don't have to yell," he grumbled hoarsely.

I held the water in front of him, waiting for him to take it. He didn't. Instead he buried his face deeper into the pillow and moaned again.

"Come on," I coaxed, tapping the water glass against his hand. "They'll make you feel better."

He grumbled in annoyance and raised his head long enough to swallow the pills with a good share of the water.

A minute later he was kneeling on the bathroom floor, emptying the contents of his stomach - which didn't amount to much aside from the pills I had just forced him to take - into the toilet.

I followed him, ignoring the fact that he was still naked. I soaked a washcloth with cold water and handed it to him. He mumbled an acceptance and sat silently pressing it to his forehead, his elbows resting on the toilet seat.

"Why," he finally slurred.

"Why what," I asked softly, still mindful of his overly sensitive hearing.

He shook his head slowly, wincing at the pain the movement caused and muttered something that sounded like "nothing."

I retrieved another pair of aspirin and offered them to him. He shot me a baleful look. I raised my eyebrows innocently. We stared at each other for several moments until he finally gave in and took them from me reluctantly.

"Slower this time," I advised as I handed him the glass of water. He took a couple of sips and handed it back.

"You okay now," I asked.

He waved his hand vaguely in my direction and buried his face in the washcloth. I shrugged and returned to the bedroom to re-pack my suitcase.

I was nearly finished by the time he came out of the bathroom. I watched him dress out of the corner of my eye. He looked amazingly stable considering his stomach had been trying to eject itself from his body only minutes before.

When he was mostly clothed, he sighed heavily and slumped on the bed, then yelped and shifted his weight onto one hip, propping himself up on his arm. I winced as I realized the cause of his discomfort and that I was the one who had inflicted it.

I turned to face him warily. We stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable silence, each of us trying to read the other's thoughts. I saw the same question in his eyes that I was sure he could see in mine: how did this happen and what do we do now?

"Look," I finally said. "About last night..." I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen was what I was going to say, but I never got the chance.

"Let's get one thing clear," he interrupted. "*Nothing* happened last night; none of this. As far as I'm concerned, we never even met." He fixed me with an intense stare that suggested he was used to giving orders, but not necessarily used to people to actually *following* them. "Understood?"

I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him that hey, he certainly didn't have to worry about me telling everybody I knew about what had happened. I was having a hard enough time admitting it to *myself*. Or maybe I just wanted to argue for the sake of arguing. My pride didn't take too kindly to taking orders from a kid who, as far as I knew, was not even an FBI agent, much less my superior. But he had a gun and from the look in his eye, it was in my best interests to not piss him off.

So I decided to change the subject.

"Who's Sydney," I asked.

He stiffened, his jaw tightening. "What do you mean?"

I got the distinct impression that if I gave him the wrong answer I would end up looking down the barrel of his gun after all.

I raised my hands innocently. "You were talking in your sleep. I was just curious," I said defensively.

His eyes narrowed. "What did I say?"

"That's all," I assured him. "Just 'Sydney'."

He stared at me a while longer, as if he were trying to read my intentions. Upon finding nothing suspicious, he dropped his gaze. He stared at his forgotten tie, which was crushed in his hand and tried to smooth out the wrinkles with his fingers.

"She's a co-worker," he mumbled absently. He fussed with the tie for another moment while I waited for him to continue. Instead, he changed the subject again.

"Who's Scully," he asked, looking back up at me. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "You said her name last night when..." He faltered. "Right after you fell asleep."

I figured he was too embarrassed to tell me that I said it when he rolled me off of him so he could breathe.

"A co-worker," I said, mimicking his own vague answer.

He rolled his eyes, his lips curling into an ironic smile, and went back to smoothing out his tie.

There was another awkward pause before I continued. "Sydney's more than just a co-worker, isn't she?"

"What makes you say that," he asked, giving up on his tie and stuffing it into the pocket of his suit jacket, which was lying on the bed beside him.

"Lucky guess."

He gave me an odd look. "Yeah, I suppose she is."

"Have you told her?"

"Told her what," he asked innocently. At least he was trying for "innocent", but I could tell he was just playing dumb.

"Told her that you think of her as more than just a co-worker...a friend. That you think you may be in love with her."

He gave me a crooked grin. "That's a pretty big assumption, Agent Mulder."

I shrugged. "It just seemed to me like..." I frowned as I realized what it was he had just let slip. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

He blinked. "You told me last night."

I cocked my head at him and squinted to indicate that I knew he was lying. "No, I didn't. I may have been drunk, but I'm sure I would have remembered that."

He seemed to try to think of a way around telling me the truth before deciding it was not worth the effort. He sighed.

"All right. I saw it on the credit card you gave the bartender," he admitted. "It's a force of habit, I guess. I didn't see the first name, but I remember you *did* tell me you work for the government."

"As did you," I mused. "And judging by this conversation I would guess that you work in Intelligence."

He shook his head and laughed dryly. "And now you know why I'm not a field agent."

I walked over to the bed and extended my hand. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI."

He winced at my first name and said "Wow."

I smiled. "Now you know why I would have remembered telling you."

He took my pro-offered hand in a firm grip and said "Agent Michael Vaughn, CIA. I would say it's nice to meet you, but I think that ship has already sailed." I smirked. "And I suppose Agent Scully is more than just a co-worker as well?"

I blew out a breath and sat down next to him on the bed. "I guess you could say that. It's complicated."

He gave me a humorless, bark of a laugh, as if to say 'I'll bet!'

"She's probably the only person I can trust. We've been through a lot together. I don't know what I would do without her."

"But you're not sure if she feels the same way," he finished.

"Yeah," I agreed. "And even if she did..."

"It's too complicated."

I smiled at him. "We may have more in common than we thought."

He chuffed. "Only if Scully's mother murdered your father and you can't ever be seen with her in public or you could both be killed."

I flinched. "Well, no...we're partners, so we're pretty much expected to be seen together in public. And her mother didn't kill my father, but Scully did shoot me to keep me from killing the man who did."

His eyes widened in surprise. "Wow. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You didn't know," I dismissed. "Besides, that was a long time ago. We've moved on."

"How long have you two been partners," he asked.

"Eight years," I said proudly. Vaughn got a look on his face that suggested he was imagining being in a perpetual state of unrequited...whatever it is for that long.

"How about you and Sydney," I asked.

"This is our second year."

My lips twitched as I tried not to laugh.

"What," he asked, trying to sound wounded even though I could tell he was holding back a smile.

"Rookie," I teased. He elbowed me lightly.

"How can you stand it," he asked, becoming serious again. "How can you go on that long without doing something?"

I leaned my elbows on my knees and rubbed a hand over my face as I debated his question - a question I had actually asked myself more than once.

"Honestly? I have no idea. I guess I keep hoping Scully will make the first move." I looked down at my hands where they were clasped together in front of me. "I guess I'm too much of a coward to do it myself," I admitted.

"I can't believe you would wait *eight* years just because neither one of you was willing to make the first move."

I shrugged. "It took me a while to trust her at first. She was basically sent to spy on me. Give the FBI a reason to shut me down."

He frowned. "Shut you down?"

Here we go...

"I work in the X-Files division. We deal with paranormal phenomena. They assigned Scully to work with me based on the theory that, with her scientific background, she would find logical explanations for all of our cases."

"I didn't know the FBI had a division for that," he said warily.

"That's because we're like the long lost cousin that nobody talks about. Our office is in the basement, which hardly ever gets any visitors. We usually get sent on cases that nobody else has been able to solve. They only send us in after they've exhausted every other option."

I watched Vaughn's reaction to my story, trying to determine how much I could say before he thought I was as crazy as everybody else did. He seemed to be taking it in stride so far, so I decided to keep going.

"We have discovered evidence of a massive government conspiracy to keep people from knowing the truth about extraterrestrial life when they have, in fact, formed an alliance with these aliens in the hopes of saving their own hides when the aliens finally colonize Earth. If we can prove it, hopefully we can stop it."

Get to the point, Spooky. Get to the point!

"But I'm sure you know how the government feels about partners dating each other. If the FBI found out they would split us up, and as much as I didn't trust Scully at first, I'm not sure I can do this without her."

There was a lengthy silence before he spoke.

"I'm guessing I'm not the first person to say this, but...you do realize how crazy that sounded, right?"

I laughed. "You probably won't be the last to say it either."

He shook his head, his expression either showing amazement or disbelief that I wasn't in a straight-jacket and surrounded by padded walls.

"What about you and Sydney," I asked. "Why haven't you told her yet? Or are you hoping she'll beat you to it?"

"I'm not afraid to be the one to make the first move," he said softly. "And while I don't know what I would do if she told me she doesn't feel the same way, that's not what's holding me back."

I sat up and turned slightly to face him, silently encouraging him to open up a bit. He seemed to debate with himself for a moment. Then he took a deep breath.

"She's not just a CIA agent," he began. "She works undercover for another agency - a sort of rogue agency that poses as a top secret division of the CIA, but is actually part of an international organized crime ring. She provides us with valuable inside information on this agency that we hope will eventually lead to its destruction."

He paused. "If that agency were to find out that we know each other, if they found out that she had connections to the CIA, they wouldn't hesitate to kill both of us - and probably everybody close to us."

Somehow I managed to keep my jaw from crashing into my knees. I'm not sure what I had expected him to say, but it wasn't *that*.

"Wow," I finally choked out. Okay, I guess it sounded more like a pathetic squeak. I cleared my throat and said, "you win."

He smiled sadly. "Now you know why I didn't say anything before."

I frowned, my brain still scrambling to process everything. "What made you change your mind," I asked.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, for one thing, I can't imagine any agency that would send somebody to do *this* just to find out what I know."

Translation: they wouldn't send somebody to sleep with the person they're trying to squeeze for information, or if they did they would at least have sent a woman.

"Not to mention," he continued. "Coming up with a cover story like *that* and an alias like 'Fox'."

Translation: you're too crazy to be a fake.

Pause.

"So what is this really about," he asked tentatively.

"What do you mean," I asked, confused.

He shifted, wincing slightly. "Do you usually go to bars to pick up guys?"

I laughed. "No! No, actually, until today I would have said that anybody who suggested that I was anything other than straight was blind."

"And now," he asked softly.

Our eyes met and I could see a mixture of anticipation and dread in his gaze, even though the rest of his face remained blank.

I had the sudden taunting memory of his tongue laving my ear, pausing with a soft whimper as my fingers stretched him in preparation...

"I think we were both in desperate need of human affection," I finally said. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the psychologist is back! "Rather than risk a potentially - or in your case mortally - dangerous relationship we were looking for an alternative." The look on his face told me he wasn't buying it.

"Then why didn't we find women that remind us of Sydney or Scully," he argued.

"I don't think either one of us planned *this*." I waved my hand in the general direction of the bed we were sitting on. "It's obvious that we have a lot in common. I think we were drawn to each other because we both saw a person who could sympathize with our situation - someone we could talk to. The alcohol did the rest."

Vaughn's lips twitched briefly. His voice lowered, its tone almost hesitant. "Are you sure it was *just* the alcohol?"

Instead of answering I leaned over, grabbed him by the chin, and kissed him.

This had made sense to me at the time. If I was right, then neither one of us would derive anything from it. It would be like kissing your cousin or something - completely platonic.

It almost worked.

He twitched violently, startled, but didn't say anything. In fact his mouth remained firmly closed. The problem came when I found myself inexplicably reluctant to stop - couldn't bring myself to pull away. And he wasn't making any move to help me. Instead, he did the last thing I would have expected him to do. He kissed me back. His formerly rigid posture just melted away and he leaned closer and opened his mouth for my tongue.

A little voice in the back of my head screamed at me to stop, retreat, apologize... but for some reason I just couldn't do it. His lips were warm, soft and dangerously inviting.

My hands, which were suddenly moving without my permission, reached up to cup the back of his neck, cradling his head. His hands started to mirror the gesture, but stopped hesitantly before they settled on my chest. I half expected him to push me away, but instead he just clutched the fabric at the front of my shirt in his fists.

I think the need for air is what finally forced us apart, although I would like to imagine that we came to our senses. Either way, we sat frozen for what felt like a half an hour (though it was probably only a few seconds), our faces no more than two inches apart, just staring at each other.

I could feel his breath on my face; soft, panting gasps. I didn't have to be a doctor to guess that if I shifted my hand slightly to feel the pulse point in his neck I would discover that his heart was racing.

Even though his hands were still clenching my shirt, I could tell by the look in his eyes that his mind was most likely working frantically to erase those last few moments from memory so he could pretend that it never happened. Although it could have just been shocked confusion.

Either way, he apparently decided that resistance was futile because the next thing I knew his hands were gripping my hair almost painfully and his tongue was in my mouth.

By the time I came to my senses, I found myself hovering over a prostrate Vaughn with my hands roaming underneath his shirt, which I had apparently untucked from his pants at some point. I pulled back when I felt him wince. I frowned in confusion, utterly lust-stupid. Then I saw it; the thin line of bruising underneath his bottom lip where the delicate skin had nearly been broken and another memory of the night before came flooding into my mind...

/I heard him gasp as I aligned myself against his opening, pushing forward just slightly, cautiously. His hands clutched at the sheets as he closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing and force his muscles to relax. My suspicions were confirmed - he was what you could call a "backdoor virgin"; completely unfamiliar with the things that happened between two men in the bedroom.

I hesitated for a moment, searching my alcohol-soaked mind for a way to reduce his discomfort. I finally decided that it was like removing a Band-Aid - the quicker the better. So I snapped my hips forward, burying myself to the hilt with one smooth thrust.

He stiffened, a soft, strangled sound coming from deep in his throat even as he clamped his bottom lip tightly between his teeth to keep from crying out at the sudden pain.

I was impressed. I remember I screamed bloody murder and nearly passed out my first time. Yes, I had had other homosexual encounters in the past and no, it's none of your damn business. Desk job my ass - this man had been trained to withstand torture even while under the influence of a mind-altering substance.

I massaged the back of his neck with one hand - the other gripping his hip to prevent him from pulling away - and murmured in his ear until I felt him start to relax. I rocked my hips slightly and he flinched.

"Don't move," he pleaded, his words slurring only a little.

I ignored him and tilted my hips upwards. He gasped, his back arched and his eyes glazed over with the intoxicating mixture of pain and pleasure. I encouraged him to wrap his legs around me, slipping just a little bit deeper.../

I leaped off the bed and away from Vaughn. Unfortunately, I had nowhere to go. I paced the floor in front of the bed restlessly, trying to think of an excuse, an apology, something that I could say to make up for what had happened. Vaughn just lay motionless on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Damnit," I muttered under my breath. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

He didn't move and he didn't respond. The silence was doing absolutely nothing to calm my nerves. I wondered if I should just leave and avoid any further embarrassment, but remembered that it was *my* hotel room we were in.

I was relieved when he finally spoke, his voice bland - as if he were simply reporting the weather. "Was that a yes or a no?" Smart-ass.

"I...ah..." I stammered. Then, I turned and ducked into the bathroom before I could say anything else. Yes, I know...  
classic avoidance behavior, but frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to think about the answer to his question. I needed a couple of minutes to compose myself. I also had the strange, sudden urge to empty my bladder.

By the time I returned, Vaughn had put his suit coat back on and was standing awkwardly next to the bed. We stood in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, staring at each other and yet managing to avoid eye contact, before either of us attempted to speak. Unfortunately, we both attempted to do so at the same time.

"I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"I think I'll just-"

He laughed nervously and looked at his shoes.

I tried again, hesitantly. "You should probably get going. Check out time is at eleven."

His head came up - his eyes finally meeting mine again - and squinted at me. This unnerved me even further. As if he could look right through me and see all the thoughts and desires I had repressed - all the doubts I now had that stemmed directly from that one still-unanswered question. Then a strange look that I couldn't decipher came over his face. He nodded.

There was another lengthy pause before he stepped toward me and held out his hand, saying, "Well, it was nice meeting you, Agent Mulder."

I tamped down on the urge to say something sarcastic and said, "Likewise, Agent Vaughn," as I accepted his handshake.

I froze as I felt something press into my hand and realized that he had 'palmed' something to me. Damn, he was good at that...any casual observer would never have suspected a thing.

I looked at him questioningly. His face remained neutral, but his eyes spoke very clearly. 'Don't say anything,' they said rather firmly.

I didn't. And when Vaughn let go I just closed my hand around the object and returned it to my side without looking at it. I nodded and his lips turned up briefly in an almost imperceptible smile.

Then he turned and walked out of the room, giving me one last hesitant look before closing the door softly behind him.

I stood in the middle of my empty hotel room for a while, thinking. Wondering what the hell just happened. I was almost afraid to look at the thing in my hand - which I now recognized as a piece of paper - although I wasn't sure why. I turned it over in my hand a couple of times and debated just slipping it into my pocket and forgetting about it for the time being or possibly throwing it away without even looking at it and pretending it had never existed.

In the end, curiosity won out - morbid though it may have been. I brought my hand in front of me, slowly uncurling my fingers to reveal the small slip of paper that had been folded neatly in half. I unfolded it warily...and my breath caught in my throat as I read what I could only assume was Vaughn's hasty scrawl.

555-1347 V

My eyes flew to the door, almost as if I expected him to walk back through it at any moment. When he didn't, I looked back at the note uncertainly. What the hell did this mean? Why?

After I recovered a bit from my initial shock (about twenty minutes later), I set the piece of paper down on the dresser and finished getting ready to leave. As I was heading out the door, I paused to look at it again.

I wasn't sure what it would mean - what the consequences were - if I chose to keep it. Would it suggest something about me? Would I be acknowledging some...unconscious desire that I wasn't ready to admit to having? But at the same time, I couldn't just *leave* it sitting there.

I picked it up and stared at it for a while longer, as though, if I waited long enough, the answer would come to me.

Christ, Mulder, it's just a piece of paper. Get over it.

And with that thought, I stuffed it quickly in my pocket - right alongside my wallet - picked up my suitcase and left the room.

THE END

Author's end notes: This is part of a longer series that can be found on my website. If you want to read the rest (which is much slashier and crosses over with Lost in the final chapter), you can find it at diandrahollman . tripod . com (remove the spaces).


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